Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Leveling competitions - the future of MMORPG?
alecbr
Member Posts: 64
Most players have a very bad opinion about leveling in MMORPGs. So we have to introduce something new into leveling to make it more interesting. I suggest that the game companies start with organizing competitions in leveling.
The players start with a new character at level 1 and the first player that reaches the final level has won the competition. The competitions could be limited to one class or they could be free style - all the classes are allowed.
We could have several categories of competition:
PvE: Each player has his own instance of the whole game.
RAID: All the players that compete are in one instance of the game. They compete for the same resources.
PvP: The same as RAID but players can also kill each other.
We could have competitions where only time matters or we could have competitions where beside the time also the money and the gear that the player has at the end would matter.
Once a year the best players could come together for example in Las Vegas for a World Cup in leveling. Hey maybe in time leveling could become a Olympic discipline.
This kind of competitions could have a very bright future and it could also be the future of MMORPG. How I got this idea? Last time I heard someone saying that in their guild they were competing with each other who will be the first to reach the final level. So it's already happening. The game companies should only organize it.
Comments
Fail, automatic bot programs and anti-hack methods. A competition shouldn't be based on clientside uptime.
Not a terrible idea actually. Sure, the other poster has a point about bots and uptime, but in general the concept could get some interest. Personally, I despise leveling. It's all about the end game to me. But give me some incentive, like a good prize for example, and I might very well consider it. I think that with WoW and their arena tournaments we've seen that tournament based ideas for mmos could work. What you're talking about is almost like a lottery. If 100k people join the competition and it takes three months for the fastest person to level, the dev grosses like 4.5 million in $15/mo subscription fees and can offer some highly sought after prizes. Of course, then the game would probably become a hackfest from hell, but the idea's cool none the less.
With this thread I was trying to show how degraded the MMORPGs of today are. The MMORPGs of today are so degraded that you can turn the leveling into a competition and that for a lot of players the leveling already is a competition. So today the definition of MMORPG would be: MMORPG is a game that has two phases. The first phase is a competition in leveling and the second phase is raiding instances. Now can somebody answer me which phase is the RPG part of a MMORPG.
There's nothing "degrading" for games to be games, nor is it degrading for people to compete in something they find enjoyable.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
And this is the problem, it should be about the journey not the destination. Why have leveling if all you want to do is end-game?
Why would devs want to encourage players to reach the endgame? Once you level a few chars to max...there ain't much left in the game...so you move onto a next game. So it doesn't benefit the devs at all to encourage you to end your sub earlier does it?
As for this who race to endgame...it's the reason for our crappy MMO experience. Devs just putting in content for the endgame and not bother too much with the beginning or the middle of the game. So only people who can suffer threw the hours of tedious mind numbing grind to reach the endgame...get to enjoy more tedious mind numbing grind.
And this is the problem, it should be about the journey not the destination. Why have leveling if all you want to do is end-game?
Seriously dude, haven't you figured out by now that one man's trash is another man's treasure? That phrase isn't said to be cute. There's a whole bunch of truth about life in that phrase.
So, your question: "Why have leveling if all you want to do is end-game?" Well, heck, that's a spectacular question!! That question is exactly why I have no interest in the "wow clones" nowadays. I've already leveled in multiple games for nearly ten years, and because of that I couldn't care less about leveling. It's boring, bland, and a pure time sink to make up for what is usually a complete lack of end game.
See, if you've ever played a sandbox, you already know that you don't need a leveling process. MMOs can be build entirely upon the end game. If a leveling process was designed that got rid of the tedious crap, then perhaps I would be interested in it. But if you want me to kill 10 boars for their tusks over and over in different themes AND expect me to like it, then you're straight up delusional.
Ultimately, the problem isn't that people skip to the end game, it's that the journey is so poorly designed that people rush to the end game to actually be able to enjoy the game. I'm happy that you appear to like leveling, and I hope you find plenty of games out there that meet your desired criteria in a game. But don't ever be so pathetically arrogant as to assume that your personal preference in a game in any way matches that of what any other person finds to be fun to them.
I dunno, unoffically we seem to already be there. Maybe there isn't any official prizes or recognition, but it seems to me that's all I read about is how fast someone got to max level, or who got through a raid first, or the quickest.
No reason to encourage this bad behavior.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
It's unfortunate that solely because of wow people today feel that all a mmo is good for is leveling and raiding. There can be a lot more to a mmo, and there used to be until wow took control of the genre and every other dev copied wow's simplistic design. Don't get me wrong. Wow is a good game. Wow just isn't a good mmo imo.
Most humans have a strong sense of competition. This isn't "bad behavior", it's human nature.
I like the part about meeting in Las Vegas for the Grinding World Cup. We could be famous and the girls would love us. NOT!